An inside look at raising 3 girls: Chicago couple goes the extra mile to make it work - Brief Article

Ebony, Feb, 2002 by Bobbi Roquemore

GIRLS, girls, girls. Adrienne and Jeune Nazon of Chicago have been blessed with three of them, and they thoroughly enjoy their role as parents.

Ashley, 13, Taylor, 6, and Jordan, 5, have three distinct personalities and needs, and their parents wouldn't have it any other way.

Still, keeping the family's engine running smoothly requires plenty of work and patience.

"We talk about all of the things that need to be done so that we're on the same page," says Adrienne Nazon, 38, about her husband Jeune Nazon, 35.

Therefore, the Nazon family has a system firmly in place. In their household, a typical "day" actually begins at night, as they embark, on a 24-hour whirlwind of activity.

"It's critical to have everybody's hair done at night, and I lay out everybody's clothes in the evening because I get up at 5 a.m.," Adrienne Nazon says. "I usually leave the house at 6:45 a.m., which means that Jeune is left to do the morning activities."

By the time Adrienne heads off to work as an Internet marketing professional, Jeune wakes up the girls and gets them ready for the day. He prepares not only the lunches, but also a hearty breakfast each morning.

"My mornings are a lot of times more stressful than my [work] days, getting all of the kids together, fed and to school," Jeune Nazon says. "I make them breakfast every morning, except Friday, when they eat cereal. The kids love cereal, but I like to cook a nutritious breakfast for them in the morning."

Jeune Nazon takes each of the three girls to a different school before going to his job as the Midwest region's director of operations for T.G.I. Friday's restaurants.

The activity picks up again in the afternoon, when Adrienne Nazon runs the show.

She picks up Jordan at 2 p.m. and Taylor at 4:30 p.m. Jeune usually picks up Ashley from her school in the afternoon as well.

The family reunites around dinnertime. After eating, the children review their homework, and then the family may play a game or exchange stories before beginning the process all over again.

Wednesday is "Tea Night," which involves cinnamon-apple or chamomile tea, and a round of Bible stories before bedtime.

The parents, who have been married for eight years, are thrilled by the fact that each of the children brings a unique quality to the family. Ashley--Jeune Nazon's child from a previous relationship--is a "very outgoing, very responsible" teenager who has never missed the honor roll at school, her father says.

Taylor, whom both parents called the jokester of the family, keeps the house buzzing with her effervescent personality.

Ashley, Taylor and Jeune Nazon go head-to-head quite frequently playing board games, with "Aggravation" and "Guess Who?" among the favorites. However, the family must keep their eye on the ever-competitive Taylor, who will do whatever it takes to win. "Taylor cheats so much, but she's a good cheater!" Jeune Nazon jokes.

Jordan, the youngest child, is shy around others yet assertive in expressing her needs. That's all right with her parents, who are just happy that Jordan has made it to see five years of her life.

When Jordan was almost 2, she was diagnosed with leukemia, and doctors said the prognosis was not good. Jordan's white-blood-cell count was 750,000; the normal count is 10,000, and doctors were concerned about her chances of survival, Adrienne Nazon says. Even with chemotherapy treatment, the family wasn't sure how she would respond.

"When you take chemotherapy and it breaks up the cells, they are very acidic," Adrienne Nazon says. "[The doctors] didn't think her liver could take the acidity, and they thought it would fail. And they didn't know if chemotherapy would be effective in bringing her white-blood-cell count down quickly enough."

Jordan went through 2 1/2 years of intense radiation therapy, but came through it without major complications. She is now in remission, and she's three years away from a better diagnosis. The family kept her out of kindergarten this year, but the goal is to have Jordan begin regular school in the fall.

In recent weeks, Adrienne Nazon's employer has allowed her to shave 10 hours per week in office time at Transora.com to allow her to spend more time with Jordan at this critical stage in both her recovery and her life.

"She goes to a special school where she gets occupational and speech therapy," Adrienne Nazon says. "All of those things need reinforcement and a certain amount of consistency. It was clear that with the schedule we were keeping, we didn't have enough focused time to give Jordan the reinforcement that she needed."

With the extra time in the afternoon, Adrienne Nazon works with Jordan to improve her motor skills and reading, which has been a tremendous boost for the child.

Through it all, the entire Nazon family has rallied around Jordan. Jeune Nazon has raised $15,000 by running in the past two Chicago Marathon races as a part of "Team In Training," a major fund-raiser for the Leukemia and Lymphoma Society. He also serves as a mentor for the Society's Illinois chapter.